Lawless

Notice, if you will, there is little respect for the law these days, any law. Child molesters are sentenced to short jail terms or probation, students riot for pure entertainment value, mass murders are blamed on the instrument not the murderer, traffic laws are viewed as mere suggestions and now drug dealers may be granted early release. Their sentences deemed too harsh. Aberrant behavior is becoming the norm. Is our society taking its lead from national "leadership"?

I give you office-holder (but not upholder of constitutional law), U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder who bobs, weaves and dodges all questions regarding results of the various investigations into: Fast and furious, government sponsored gun-running, Benghazi, the politically motivated sacrifice of American lives, IRS targeting of conservative citizen groups and NSA spying on private telephone communication; more violations of the law than the average Mafia Don. All may be placed at the doorstep of the Obama administration. But the buck seems no longer to stop at the top.

The why, according to Mr. Holder, Mr. Obama and the growing ranks of professional race- baiters, is that anyone who disagrees is, of course, a racist.

What of those among us who seek only the rule of law, transparency in our government, adherence to our Constitution and the truth from all of the Justice Department investigations; if they are indeed investigations? Instead we get "Don't go there, Buddy." Sounds like a threat to me.

Where did our town go?

After reading Steve LaMar's letter last week, I can just say RIGHT ON!

How did we let this happen to our town? Look at what it has become – as Steve noted – a "tacky bar town." Tacky is putting it mildly. The quiet, peaceful, Western charm has been obliterated by endless signs screaming at you for your business, way too many bars, traffic disruptions by "special events" that paralyze the town for the residents. This is not what people moved to this town for.

Do we really need three-four huge bars piled on top of each other? What was there business strategy (if any) – "Gee, maybe I'll open another bar because my Corona will taste better than at those other bars." I do not want to hear some business owners complaining about how poor business has been. No – your decision to open another non-viable business is what you should be questioning.

As for the signage, including the latest Monster-Sign proudly displaying that there is absolutely nothing in that shopping area, it is tacky, distracting, dangerous, and ineffective at best. A few of the old establishments have it right with their signs blending in nicely. And just how many huge signs can you fit on the side of a bar? When I have an hour some day, I'll count them. And now we are further adorned with huge tractor trailers permanently parked roadside and a number of "TB Huts" placed right at the curb (perfect for squatters). With such a mix of offerings, we can probably just put huge signs at both ends of town designating "The Dump."

Is Cave Creek the new Sturgis? The last motorcycle event was abysmal. We residents tried to stay out of our town, but the brave ones who ventured in were met with delays, detours, and more than a few incidents of "run-ins" with the visiting cyclists. Did I miss the law allowing 50 motorcycles to go through a red light just because they are in a group. One resident motorist was caught in that situation, and when he tried to proceed through the intersection he was met with flailing curses and fingers surrounding his vehicle. I guess the Sheriff was busy ticketing someone for doing 37 in a 30 on CCR. For whose benefit was this event anyway? Clearly not the Creek residents. This town does not exist to support the success of the area bars or any other business establishment. Most of them moved into OUR neighborhood. It's simple economics, the law of supply and demand – place your business where there is a demand for it; not the other way around.

I for one hope the recall election will work for us. As Steve noted, Cave Creek is already "off the rails." We need people on the council who appreciate and want to preserve what this town was historically. Then we need to go about the work of cleaning up the current mess and restoring it to the tranquil environment it was.

Trenk and the technicalities

There must be an election coming because Trenk has evidently moved back to Cave Creek. Forgive me, already I digress.

Trenk has fired up a legion of lawyers again, not to get on the ballot as a non resident like he did for the last election, but to keep him off the ballot for a recall election. Cave Creek Caring Citizens PAC collected nearly twice the number of signatures necessary to put Trenk and his bobbleheads (Spitzer, Durkin and Monachino) on the ballot for a recall election this fall. But, the ethically challenged Trenk is doing what he does best - mobilizing a multitude of lawyers to get his way by challenging the recall petitions based on technicalities - by trying to find the i’s that didn’t get dotted and the t’s that didn’t get crossed. We all hate it when we know that someone is guilty based on overwhelming evidence, but they beat the rap on a technicality. It could happen here and it would be a shame since an overwhelming number of residents want this slate to stand a recall election. The evidence suggests that none of them can survive their abysmal record of dishonesty, secrecy, wasting taxpayer dollars, the deplorable mess they created in the town core and the direction they are taking the town - and it can happen none too soon. Cave Creek residents must take their town back now. Let’s hope this slate cannot slime its way past the will of the people based on a technicality.

Spoof Space, April 16, 2014, Sonoran News

As you know, I'm not religious, but Mother Teresa's advice is wonderful. Be kind, helpful, understanding, patient and giving, and don't do it with the expectations of reward other than the internal reward of doing good. Thanks.

Bike Week Pandemonium Event

As a 38-year resident of Cave Creek, I wish to make a suggestion for a better scheduling of the Bike Week now held in April. Some of our regular tourists are leaving early to avoid the very congested event. Let's not lose the tourists we have and schedule Bike Week later on in the summer months, May, June, etc., when we are slow. Then our large western establishments like Tap Haus, Harold's, Buffalo Chip and Hogs & Horses can experience a truly "free wheeling" Bike Western Week with lots of safe parking space and pleasant, easy meandering throughout Cave Creek. No more closed roads.

Gun registration bill exempts "ObamaCare" entities

We have not reported on the contents of the bill, despite its amazing acceptance level.

The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that: It's a pelosi! People support it without knowing what's in it!

The gun-owner registration bill "92 percent of the public supports" leaves out guns in hospitals and any ... "health insurance entity." ObamaCare is a health-insurance entity.

It's amazing what you can learn by reviewing the bills our leaders propose. Alert reader C.D. Tavares spotted an error in Page Nine No. 133, which turns out to be a major element of this breaking story.

Here's the relevant statute language from the proposed Manchin-Toomey amendment, the gun-registration bill being sold to the public as a wildly supported (but repeatedly defeated) background-check bill – (m) The Attorney General may not consolidate or centralize the records of the – (2) possession or ownership of a firearm, maintained by any medical or health insurance entity.

[Note that the AG, or anyone, is not prevented from recording, storing, collating, compiling, distributing, securing, retrieving, integrating, merging, using or backing up these (or, elsewhere in the bill) all other gun records on you forever; there is no audit trail or punishment for violations; and anyone except the AG could "consolidate or centralize" these or any other firearms records under this "ban." It's preposterous, a farce.]

In my Page Nine review last issue, I remarked about that last line in the section:

"And what's that bit at the end that says medical- and health-insurance-company owned guns are exempt." Had I added "... from the paperwork rules," C.D. noted, it would have made the line more accurate, or at least more clear. But that got me thinking.

The point is this, and it's never been made before as far as I'm aware. What exactly is a "medical or health-insurance entity" and what are those places doing with all these guns? That's an anti-gunny-type question to be sure, but surely valid here. And why are they exempted?

This is for people working in ObamaCare – a health-insurance entity. Who are these people? How many of them are out there, exempt? Can we the people get equal treatment under the law? Is this what 92 percent of the public supports? Or has the media been feeding you nonsense straight from the anti-rights advocates, without a single hint of skepticism or research on their part?

The AG (but no one else in this bill) is also banned from "consolidating or centralizing" records about:

"(1) acquisition or disposition of firearms, or any portion thereof, maintained by – (A) a person with a valid, current license under this chapter;"

That's FFLs, people in the gun business. The various dealer types are exempt, because they're already well papered. For them, this would just be redundant.

The antis will look you right in the eye and lie:

Anyone with a grain of knowledge understands it's not about background checks. It's about gun registration by the federal government. It's in black and white. The media is lying to you.

IRS abuse

Time magazine published an article this week exposing the fact that $1 million dollars in bonuses was paid out to IRS employees who owed back taxes. I'm pretty sure if I owed back taxes the IRS would be knocking on my door and threatening to garnish my wages.

Why are IRS employees treated differently? It seems the all too familiar reason is that they work for the government and the government treats "their own" differently. If you are ever audited by the IRS - you are guilty until proven innocent and often the best course of action is to simply roll over and pay whatever they ask. That's state sponsored extortion. It doesn't matter if you are right or not - it will cost you more in time and money to try to prove you are right. With a tax code approaching 80,000 pages that's pretty much impossible.

It is time to eliminate the IRS and the oppressive income tax and switch to something that is simple, fair and visible. Something that is easy to administer, easy to comply with and difficult to cheat. That solution is the FairTax. A national retail sales tax with no tax on the basic necessities of life. No IRS, no income tax and millions of new jobs.

The games people play

Oh the games people play with your medical dollars. Long before the Affordable Care Act, i.e. Obamacare, was implemented, the insurance companies and the government were playing very deceiving games with your medical bills. This practice will continue under the Affordable Care Act. Let me explain:

Recently, a hospital administrator explained to me that when the hospital bills the insurance companies or Medicare, they will receive on average 38 percent of the amount billed. This percentage may vary in different areas, but it will be close to this amount.

Now let’s do the math using an imaginary example. Let’s say you have an insurance plan with a $1,000 deductible followed by an 80/20 percent division once the deductible is met. To make the math simple let’s use even figures and say that your medical bill was $11,000. You are charged the $1,000 deductible, and the $10,000 that remains is split in your 80/20 plan. You are expected to pay $2,000 more for a total of $3,000 and the insurance provider “covers” the other $8,000. If the medical provider will only receive about 38 percent of the amount billed to the insurance carrier, that means the insurance carrier will pay $3040. ($8,000 X 38 percent = $3040) Thus the medical provider will receive $6040 - $3,000 paid by you and $3040 paid by the insurance provider.

This is called an 80/20 percent insurance coverage with a $1000 deductible. I don’t think I would call that funny math. I would call it flat out deception. Honesty would refer to it as a 50/50 percent plan. But, who would pay big money for a 50/50 percent plan?

Now the medical providers, knowing what percentage they are actually going to get paid, must raise their prices so that they will get the payment they need. Therefore we have skyrocketing medical bills caused by insurance providers and government.

To make this scenario worse, if a medical provider allows self-pay clients to just pay the amount that the provider would receive if the client were insured, the insurance company and government will often “punish” the medical provider for not charging the full amount charged to the “covered” clients.

As government takes more control, this situation is only going to get worse.

Data mining your children

Can someone in Oklahoma please let Gov. Fallin know that Common Core is worse than just an ill-considered set of standards. The curriculum and teaching style that necessarily accompany the standards to accommodate alignment are not developmentally appropriate, the one-size-fits-all metrics disengage parents and teachers from the meaningful and nurturing education our children require and the agreement Oklahoma and other CCSS states signed to establish an "inter-operable database" clears the path for indiscriminate access by the government to mine students' confidential data.

Though 34 state Governors signed agreements assuring parents they will not share confidential student information, sadly, that is a promise governors have no ability to honor. If there is data, it will be captured and no one is thirstier for private citizen data than our federal government. For the sake of our kids, the testing and the data capture must be terminated and teachers returned the freedom to work with parents to meet children's needs. Parents and teachers working together to design the best solutions for an individual child's needs is the only proven way to improve student performance.

Common Core, by David Coleman's own admission has never been tried nor even pilot tested anywhere. It is nothing more than group collaborated experiments and our children are the control factors. The early effects on students are chilling and the stress expressed by them is caused not because they are "less brilliant than their white suburban moms thought," but because the developmentally inappropriate material can only lead to greater anxiety, behavioral issues and a disinterest in learning.

Our children do not have years to suffer through this tragic experiment in academic fantasy.

They are being injured now in ways that will affect the rest of their lives. Please, Governor Fallin, these are our kids, grand kids, nieces, nephews and cousins. We all need you to repeal the CCSS, end the relationship with PARCC and keep all educational and student data records contained at the local level. We all make mistakes and CCSS is a huge one. Please have the courage to end it before more damage is done.

Slavery begins when one group, usually a political class, increasingly takes choices away from another.

John Anthony
Father, grandfather, business owner, former teacher
TPATH Contributor

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